I’m so incredibly excited and delighted to announce that The Swindle is coming to Steam, PS3, PS4, PSVita, XboxOne and WiiU. Release date is probably Summer 2015? Early summerish, hopefully. It’s still in development and I refuse to be rushed.

I’ve been making indie games for over a decade now, which seems ridiculous because I’m still just totally making it up as I go along. Anyway, in all that time I’ve never had a non-PC release. I’ve come close a few times, but it’s never really worked out. There’s something very exciting about the idea of seeing The Swindle on consoles.

Curve Digital are handling the publishing of the non-Steam versions – they’ve looked at my code and didn’t laugh, which I have to say I found most professional, and they agreed to do all the [boring tech stuff, I dunno] that makes it work on your box of choice.

Talking of which, it was important to me that all the versions release at the same time on as many formats as we could muster. I’m not someone with massively strong convictions one way or another, these things aren’t black and white- but on the whole, I’m kind of against the idea of platform or timed exclusivity, it just seems kind of rotten and unfair to people who forked out their hard-earned cash on one black box over another, and that’s not who I am.

There were talks of FREE MONEY to release on one box over another, but it didn’t feel right. So as near as dammit, all versions will just launch at the same time, which means release is now Summer, to allow for making sure it all works properly on these wildly different setups.

I’ll be using that time to polish the hell out of the game, and stuff as much content in as I possibly can.

New video footage of the game is coming, I promise, I’m going to try and do a Let’s Play but I’m not very good at talking and concentrating on playing games at the same time, I can only focus on one thing at a time, so it’ll probably be a disaster.

Here’s some new screenshots. Please click on them, they’re very big and took like an hour to upload on my countryside internet

]]>http://www.sizefivegames.com/2015/02/12/the-swindle-is-coming-to-steam-and-consoles/feed/0What a Difference a Day Makes…http://www.sizefivegames.com/2015/01/15/what-a-difference-a-day-makes/
http://www.sizefivegames.com/2015/01/15/what-a-difference-a-day-makes/#commentsThu, 15 Jan 2015 15:23:55 +0000http://www.sizefivegames.com/?p=2299One of the great things about showing off The Swindle so far is how hilariously awful the placeholder Airship HQ graphics have been. It’s worked well, because I’ve shown it to people and they’ve tried to be polite when the game boots up despite it looking like arse, and then when the level kicks in proper with the Real Graphics they’re all “ooooh, this looks preeeeetty”.

Can’t have that in the game proper, though. I’ve been waiting on this art from Michael forever, because I think he hates doing static landscape stuff.

Anyway, I’ve kept a record of the new bits going in all day, and the difference is, uh, noticeable!

Here’s how it was this morning. Placeholdery!

Here’s the basic level ‘set’ in:

All the key props added:

Time to turn on lighting! Ah, dammit:

Lit, a few particle effects, some post-processing and it’s looking WAY sexier:

Needs a few tweaks with lighting and all sorts, but by-and-large it’s BIG STUFF like this going in that really makes me happy.

Progress has been thick and fast (bar a small Chritmassy slide into a deep vegetative state), but the sweeping majority of it is just mind-meltingly boring. Loads of new stuff has gone in, from boring bug fixes to gameplay tweaks and you don’t want to hear about any of those, as they’re pretty dull.

The main changes have been to the UI, which now straddles nicely between “old retro shit-looking UI” and “non-shit looking, though” which turned out to be trickier than I’d anticipated.

There have also been some exciting tweaks to the way buildings are generated. Again, pretty minor stuff but it just means the game will keep throwing different challenges at you the further into the game you get. Buildings can now have window bays, and you’ll need to be suitably tooled-up to get past them. How you do that – with QuadJump or bombs or whatever, remains entirely up to you.

Conversations are ongoing as to which platforms I’ll be bringing the game to. Those conversations involve lawyers and all sorts, so I’ll shut up until I have a firmer idea. Suffice it to say, I’m hoping to launch my first ever console game, which is kind of terrifying and exciting.

Just thought it’d be nice to get down what’s going on behind the scenes here. Progress on the game is trundling along nicely; I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about the Final Mission, the big swindle everything’s building up to, and there’s some neat stuff happening there. The “you need to steal an all-seeing surveillance AI before it’s switched on and ruins your career” story I spoke to Eurogamer about feels a little more firm-footed. I think it’s going to work. So Michael’s been doing some design work there, working out what a Steampunk/ Cyberpunk AI would even look like. To be honest, a kind of creepy skull was a no-brainer, we’re going for something like A, below:

Louise has been doing some stuff on the UI for me, making that all pretty and tactile, and Tom and Sophie have sent on a load of lovely icons and stuff, so hopefully I’ll get round to plonking those in soon and not having an eyesore toolkit menu any more.

Meanwhile, I’ve been doing IMPORTANT GROWN-UP BUSINESS THINGS like meetings and talking to lawyers. I’ve also spent a lot of time optimising the game; there have been two core issues to deal with – firstly the framerate is sometimes pretty wobbly (still 30+ fps, but not what it should be) so I’m looking into that. I’ve also managed to massively reduce the amount of time you’re sitting waiting for the Level Generator to build rooms and what-have-you. The big huge final mission buildings have seen a load-time drop from about 13 seconds to about 3. It’s workable now, but I’d like to shave a little more off if I can.

So there you go, that’s video game development. The game’s still looking good for being properly done by Spring 2015, but we’ll see about shouting an official release date because who knows what sort of shit could go wrong between now and then.

Busy day, yesterday. It’s one of the weird things about indie development, you spend month after month after month head down, nose to the grindstone, coding day-in, day-out, occasionally dicking about on Twitter. And then suddenly, what the fuck, I’m supposed to be a PR man, now?

Promoting a new game is a bit like php, in that you kind of only need to do it every year or so and by the time you finish you’re in the swing of it, but the next time you need to do it you’ve completely lost confidence in all the skills you once had and how does all this shit work, again?

Announcing a game is a stressful time. A/ what if people don’t like it and B/ what if press sites don’t cover it and no one hears about it?

So it’s basically a day spent constantly emailing people pleading for press space and news stories, desperately hoping to get the word out to as wide a range of people as possible. I think I’ve made a good start on that, but it feels like the game’s been introduced to a circle marginally wider than my sphere of Twitter influence. It would be good to start getting people slightly further afield to notice it. I’ll have to think up some clever way of doing that.

What’s odd is that when I first started making indie games, it was tough getting noticed because no one’s focus was on indie games, they were this weird little also-ran genre that you’d maybe get a token mention if you were lucky. Nowadays the indie market is so swamped you have to shout so long and so hard to be heard above the general babble. Same problem, different scenario.

What’s more, it’s weird trying to sum up a whole game in a 2 minute announcement trailer. “Hi, here’s a complicated 8-hour game, condensed into 2 minutes it’s kind of like this but there’s more, but…”. Once this initial buzz has died back a bit, I’ll put together something that shows off the thrill and tension of a heist – probably a walkthrough of a couple of levels, so you can see what’s up.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who shared the trailer, clicked on it, commented on it. I am happy. But please do continue to spread the word; getting people to notice you these days is exhausting work.

Anyway here’s the trailer again because I’m not writing all this and then not plugging it:

Size Five Games is delighted to re-announce The Swindle: A Steampunk Cybercrime Caper.

Here’s all the gumph from the press release where I thinly pretend I’m not writing the Press Release and interviewing myself. Press Releases are weird and awful.The Swindle is a Steampunk Cybercrime Caper. Break into buildings, hack their systems, rob them of all their hard-earned cash, and get out again. Spend all the cash you’ve stolen on upgrading your thieves, and take on bigger and more dangerous heists!

“I like to think of it as a stealth game for the rest of us”, said Size Five’s Dan Marshall, out loud to no one in particular. “I suck at stealth games, I have neither the patience nor the disposition to creep slowly behind someone hoping they don’t turn around. The Swindle is my answer to that – it’s in your interest to remain undetected as long as possible on a heist, but being discovered and setting all the alarm bells ringing is more like an inevitability than a fail state. At that point, the game switches from being a sneaky-sneaky stealth game to an all out action race against the clock.”

The game will see you sneaking around procedurally-generated buildings, hacking systems to turn them in your favour, and clobbering bots over the back of the head.

“At the start you’ve got no cash and no skills, and you have to get up close and give the guards a wallop, but as the game progresses and you have all these cool toys at your disposal, you can kind of start taking them out from a distance, from the shadows, and bio-modding your thieves in order to survive.”

“I actually cancelled the game last year. The old version just wasn’t working – it had a ton of fun elements, but they just didn’t hold together in a way I was happy with, so I canned it. And I was surprised how many people got in touch disappointed at that news, so revamping it has been at the back of my mind for a while, and I’m delighted to say this version really, really works.”

]]>http://www.sizefivegames.com/2014/10/30/announcing-the-swindle-again/feed/0Bye, Rikhttp://www.sizefivegames.com/2014/06/10/bye-rik/
http://www.sizefivegames.com/2014/06/10/bye-rik/#commentsTue, 10 Jun 2014 07:53:27 +0000http://www.sizefivegames.com/?p=2209Most people probably think The Young Ones or Bottom is the best thing that Rik Mayall ever did, but they’re wrong. They’re both glorious, obviously. But after The Young Ones and before Bottom, Rik, Ade and Nigel did this relatively unheard-of little sitcom called Filthy, Rich and Catflap. It’s Rik Mayall as a shit light entertainer. It’s beautifully satirical, stupid, and full of the outraaageous anarchic shouting Rik was famous for.

I mention this, because it was arguably my single most important piece of media growing up. The VHSs have worn thin. I knew every single line, and quoted it endlessly. Ben and I often remarked that if Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson had the common decency to put together a Chemistry based sitcom, we’d have no trouble whatsoever passing our GCSEs.

These days, I sort of do comedy games, which is weird, because in truth I’m not really very funny. I’m basically just coasting on one life-long Rik Mayall impression.

It’s odd, I always just sort of assumed one day I’d get to meet him. Like there was all the time in the world. I always thought some day I’d get to shake his hand. To tell him how much he meant to me, how much he’d shaped the man I’d become, my sense of humour. I’d tell him how his comedy had been my barrier during rough times as a kid. I’d tell him how I’m in my dream career, and a little bit of him flows through everything I do. It’s suddenly plain to see his influence runs right through Ben There, Dan That! and Time Gentlemen, Please! and I am so proud of that.

Right now I’d give anything to shake him warmly by the penis hand, look him directly in the eye and say a heartfelt thank you.

I should probably go find Stewart Lee before it’s too late.

]]>http://www.sizefivegames.com/2014/06/10/bye-rik/feed/0Indie Advice: why you probably shouldn’t make a multiplayer gamehttp://www.sizefivegames.com/2014/05/02/indie-advice-why-you-probably-shouldnt-make-a-multiplayer-game/
http://www.sizefivegames.com/2014/05/02/indie-advice-why-you-probably-shouldnt-make-a-multiplayer-game/#commentsFri, 02 May 2014 12:50:15 +0000http://www.sizefivegames.com/?p=2193Hello! So it’s been about a year since Gun Monkeys come out, and because I took some innovative steps to keep it alive, I still get a lot of people asking me for advice.

The TL;DR is really: if you’re an indie developer, don’t make multiplayer games. There are exceptions, naturally, but by-and-large the number of customers you’re ever likely to get simply isn’t there to support it.Gun Monkeys was designed as a 1-on-1 game specifically to keep it easy to set up. There’s no waiting for 4 other players to turn up, you just need one opponent and you’re good to go. It was designed to be played among friends – you message someone and say “hey, quick game of GM?” and meet and play. That was the idea; that was my way of getting around the fact that it was never likely to sell enough copies to have full servers.

Sadly, that’s not what people expect from a multiplayer game. People expect to log in, and find someone of the exact same skill to play against. At 3am. I did everything I could to accommodate that, but it was never going to happen, was it? This is not just the case for me, indie multiplayer servers are dry all over.

Here’s what I’ve learned by doing this. If you’re adamant about making a multiplayer game, these suggestions are things you 100% should do.

Get hype. You can release a great game and it’ll build hype over time. That doesn’t work with multiplayer, because you need the support there from the very first second it launches. You need to have hundreds of thousands of people champing at the bit to play, if not millions, in order for the game to be successful. Be prepared to make your game, finish it, and then spend a year or so promoting it at shows and building interest before releasing it.

Release to the press WAY before launch. Pretty much every single review of GM says the servers are empty (because, like most people, the reviewers kind of didn’t expect to ever have to arrange their own matches), and it became a self-perpetuating myth. Less people bought it because the servers were empty, so the servers were more empty when people did reviews. And so on. Press need the game well in advance.

Add in bots. You’ll need to heavily invest in human-like AI to keep people happy. People will complain the AI is shit, and building AI is going to be massively expensive. As an indie, can you cover the cost of that? Simply adding multiplayer to a singleplayer game doesn’t solve the problem, either. People will still log in looking for a game, and log out to play singleplayer. They might as well be standalone games, right?

Buy advertising. You’re going to need to get your game EVERYWHERE. If you sell a million copies at launch, at any one time you’re likely to have a handful of people looking to play. People have jobs and school and are playing different games or watching Netflix. The Copies Sold : Players Online ratio is preposterous. Spending money will help that. Have you got an advertising budget? Because most don’t. Whatever it is, stick a 0 on the end.

Keep things simple. It’s hard enough getting a game of Gun Monkeys as 1-on-1, let alone if it needed 4-8 players to get a match going. Design your game around the entire concept of the severs being empty.

Keep supporting it, to a degree. This is harder than it seems. I kept fixing bugs and tweaking gameplay for a few months, because of course, but there comes a point where you’re aware you need to get on with a new game in order to keep your company afloat. Adding new maps and characters and stuff seems like a sensible thing to do, but if the game doesn’t have the numbers already, what is it really going to achieve? Another 6 months dev time on a game that doesn’t have the oomph? That kind of support is strictly for games with a thriving community and a big demand for new content, but you need to be prepared to do it.

Have money. I think that’s the long and short of it. Whether it’s for tradeshows, advertising, or a year of support after release, you need to have the finances in place to fund multiplayer games.

I don’t want to be completely negative, I just think as indies we need to be aware that the numbers TitanFall sells in order to be a constantly-playable online game eclipses anything we could possibly hope to achieve. It’s a case of being very very boringly realistic. And there are exceptions, of course there are! I’m just letting you know what my experience has been

In short? My advice remains: don’t. It’s an expensive gamble. Gun Monkeys sold well, covered its own costs, generally got 7-8 out of 10 reviews, and only took a few months to make, so from that point of view it was a success.

But Gun Monkeys immediately got forgotten about. And that’s the saddest bit for me, because it’s genuinely a brillo little game that deserved a lot more attention.